LANSING ? Dan Lohrmann, the Chief Information Security Officer for the State of Michigan, was named as the Information Security Executive of the Year in the Central Region by Executive Alliance, an awards forum. Eric Litt, Chief Information Security Officer of General Motors Corporation was named the ISE Central People’s Choice Award winner.
The other finalists were Theresa Jones, Director, Global Information Security, The Dow Chemical Company, Melanie Moody, Associate Director, Information Security & Solutions, Procter & Gamble and Viji Murali, Chief Information Officer, Western Michigan University. Additionally, Kai Axford of Microsoft was named the recipient of the ISE Central Rising Star Award. Litt also won the People’s Choice Award.
Lohrmann was appointed as Michigan’s first CISO in May 2002. He currently serves as the Director of Michigan’s Office of Enterprise Security within the Michigan Department of Information Technology. Lohrmann chairs the Cyber-Security Sub-Committee within Michigan’s Homeland Protection Board, and is the President of Michigan InfraGard for 2006.
?I couldn?t be more proud of Dan?s accomplishments,? said Teri Takai, Director of the Department of Information Technology, who was on site to watch Mr. Lohrmann accept the award. ?Michigan is fortunate to have someone of Dan?s caliber watching over our information security. He?s done a tremendous job for us during a very challenging time ? a time of unprecedented attacks on information security.?
Takai made reference to the staggering security statistics in Michigan. In 2005, Lohrmann?s office was responsible for stopping 1,791,936 email virus attacks, 12,681,729 attempts to scan ports and gain unauthorized access, 7,802,369 spam emails, and 6,037 computer hijack attempts. This represents an increase of 303 percent from 2004 to 2005 when it comes to attacks on state computer systems and the vital data contained on those systems.
Serving as the State representative for the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO), Lohrmann sits on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) IT Government Coordinating Council (GCC). He is also an executive board member of the Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), which coordinates cybersecurity actions among the 50 states. He also serves as the emergency management coordinator for MDIT, leading Michigan’s efforts to restore IT operations following the northeast blackout of 2003.
The Secure Michigan Initiative Project, developed by his security team in December 2002, received the 2003 NASCIO Security and Business Continuity Award. In partnership with the Michigan State Police, NASCIO again recognized the team with the 2004 Security and Business Continuity Award for crisis management during the Blackout of 2003.
He holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelors Degree in CS from Valparaiso University. Lohrmann is a former faculty member of the University of Maryland, European Division. He is a founding member of the Michigan Capital Area Project Management Institute (PMI) and is active in several church-related organizations.
To learn more about Executive Alliance and the ISE award, click on Infosecaward.com
